Life After
by surestsmile
Summary: Hey, she says. Hey, do you miss him. /Post Saraba Den-O/


Life After

Notes: Post-Saraba Den-O.

His Imagin are always very good at hiding their feelings from him, although Ryoutarou thinks that the underlying current of anxiety and unease surrounding his decision is too hard to suppress. It feels weird to be back on the Denliner after so many years, and to be young again, but time is only a variable to be manipulated in this place. Ryoutarou tries not to dwell on how good it feels to be back in this place, to see his friends once more.

"It's the same offer I extend to all singularity points," Owner says, and Naomi places a cup of aromatic coffee in front of him. "After all, it is my duty to protect time."

"Ah," Ryoutarou murmurs. What Owner is offering, he understands, is immortality, or something close to it, this stepping out of time and space. He's not sure if death can be thwarted so easily, but Ryoutarou thinks that there are other ways to die. He had, after all, seen his own sister pass away due to cancer, and his parents' fatal accident. And Ryoutarou is old, maybe dying, or had been before this fifteen minutes.

His Imagin are antsy, but they're silent and watchful. Ryoutarou doesn't speak with them, and they don't try to talk to him either. It's a private affair, and Ryoutarou knows that this decision is only his to make, and it's a special concession to them that they're even here to witness it.

But Momo's voice leaks into his head, soft, almost like a prayer, and Ryoutarou thinks that his first Imagin doesn't even notice he's doing it.

Say yes, the words go. Say yes.

Ryoutarou looks down, almost closes his eyes. "Thank you," he answers, softly to Owner, and his heart aches because he wants to say yes, but there's the matter of Shinto, and Ryoutarou thinks he has to be fair, "but I must respectfully decline."

Ryuuta's shrill cry and a loud bang cues a stern look from Owner, but his face quickly settles back into the cool, slightly disdainful expression. "I see," Owner says, and gracefully takes his leave.

The Imagin don't descend immediately on Ryoutarou, but he can feel the full force of their feelings now, hurt and disappointment and the deep, ugly unhappiness.

"You can choose to _not die_," Momo says bitterly, and nothing more. There's a hole by his foot, where Ryoutarou thinks is where the bang came from. Ura tries to talk him out of it, but his normally smooth voice shakes a little and destroys any notion of confidence. Kin-chan is being Ryuuta's punching bag, muffling the dragon Imagin's cries.

Ryoutarou knows that Momo is intensely disappointed, even though his expression never changes, always in that livid gaze, and he stands up, and bows, and says, "I'm really sorry."

(Momo had always thought that at the end, Ryoutarou will say yes, because which idiot would say no to eternal life. It's this reason why he forces himself to refrain from interfering in Ryoutarou's life before this, because he would have all eternity to be together with Ryoutarou after, and Ryoutarou has his own life to live before that. He never thought that Ryoutarou would say no, but he knows that he can never tell any of these thoughts to Ryoutarou.

They will just fight about it, because Ryoutarou's stubborn as an ox even if his morals are very queer, and Momo doesn't want his last days together to be filled with anger, and later, regret.)

* * *

In what he classifies as 'life after Ryoutarou', Momo occupies himself with working at Naomi's new coffeehouse branch in the terminal, or hassling Koutarou whenever he thinks that the new Den-O isn't doing his job right, especially when they go back to Ryoutarou's time. Momo wonders if Owner's stormy faces at these instances were a sign of silently berating Ryoutarou for his decision; as far as Momo knows, Ryoutarou's refusal meant that his time remained perpetually vulnerable to attacks.

He doesn't try to meet up with the Ryoutarous from the past. In Denliner, time travels in a straight line, no matter how many times it loops to go back to the past, and his Ryoutarou is dead and gone. Besides, it's more like it's the turtle who's being the masochistic one, what with the constant sly references about accosting Yuuto and taking Zeroliner for a joyride through time.

It takes him by surprise, almost, when the time came for Hana to think about her offer. Owner invites all of them to meet with her again, and Momo is unexpectedly relieved when she says yes immediately.

"Because no one else is capable of keeping these idiots in line," she says, and gives Momo the stinkeye about harassing her son.

Hana moves in with them, taking over the coffeehouse and raises a huge fuss over the messes they keep in the adjoining living areas. There is a lot of yelling in the first few weeks while they adjust back to where they first started, and for a while Momo doesn't miss Hana coming back at all, because her presence and their combined bickering makes him painfully aware that there's no Ryoutarou smiling contentedly in a corner, or playing peacemaker. Sometimes the turtle steps in to break up the fighting, or even the bear, roused by all the noise, until one day Momo goes, "Whatever, now that Ryoutarou's not here, you can do all you like!" and stomps out of the terminus.

He knows that it's stupid to bring up Ryoutarou, because he has gotten over his death, and Momo even says that it's stupid to cry sand tears over an idiot who chose death over immortality. Momo doesn't stray far from the terminus, mindful that it can sometimes up and go without warning. He digs heels in the sand, and tries not to think of anything at all.

When Hana calls, "Hey, peach-moron," he has half a mind to fling sand at her, but just tells her to go away instead. She ignores him, of couse, and sits very primly next to him, still beautiful, still graceful, still alive. Momo finds himself wishing that Ryoutarou had chosen the other way, and banishes that thought.

"It's really been a long time, huh," Hana says, "Since we met each other." Momo wants to tell her that her current time-self, with her long locks and her white wool embroidered cardigan and that decadent skirt, it makes it seem as though it was just yesterday when they met, with Ryoutarou shrinking in between their yelling, and that he hates her for making him remember Ryoutarou, making him miss Ryoutarou, because he had been doing such a good job dealing with it too.

Hana takes a deep breath, and then suddenly rushes through her words, "I'm sorry about the fighting." It's weird for Momo to hear her apologise, especially to an Imagin, but it's mostly because it's _Hana_, and not anything else. She seems expectant for a reply, and so he grunts out, "That's normal. For us, anyway."

"I was really looking forward to meeting with all of you again, though." She laces her fingers together, and stares up at the rainbow sky. "Koutarou has Teddy, so he understands what it's like being around Imagin, even if Teddy is a lot more polite than you lot. But ever since Ryoutarou passed away, there wasn't really anyone else who remembered what happened, in that year.

"I was really disappointed," Hana continues, "when I heard that Ryoutarou chose not to stay with you guys."

"He always had bad sense," Momo says, voice muffled in one arm, hating this conversation.

"Hey," she says, soft, reflective. "Do you miss him."

It's for a fact that the Imagin, or Momo, really, don't talk about Ryoutarou. It's almost like a ghost they skirt around, although Momo suspects that sometimes Ura and Kin-chan do talk about him, deep in the night, quiet and nostalgic. The mental link never really goes away, even though they've figured out how to stay out of each other's heads.

He knows that the turtle said, only once, that they really shouldn't avoid the issue, but he never brings it up to Momo's face, because he's a coward, and Kin-chan's not one to be Ura's mouth-piece, even if he agrees. On bad days, Momo violently hates them both, in the same way he hates Hana for bringing this up, digging at the wound. He thought that grief was something that would get easier, over time, but the pain is still fresh, as though it was also just yesterday when Ryoutarou said, "I'm really sorry."

Inside this place, inside time, it really could have been just yesterday. It could have been just the past hour.

When Momo says nothing, Hana wriggles one hand in his free one, and she's suddenly even younger, and her voice is high, lilting like a bird. "Hey, Momo," she says, "I really miss him."

He curls his hand in hers in silent answer.


End file.
